


chicken soup tastes better in bed

by bluebacchus



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Chicken Soup, Fainting, Fever, First Dates, First Kiss, Hair Washing, M/M, Mentions of past abuse, Modern!Dave, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Prompt Fill, Serenading, Sick Character, Sickfic, dave loves and supports his boyfriend, hurt/comfort with very little hurt, unicorn plushies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-15
Updated: 2019-06-18
Packaged: 2020-05-12 06:20:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19223395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebacchus/pseuds/bluebacchus
Summary: On their very first date, Klaus gets sick and Dave can't remember where he keeps his emergency box of chicken noodle soup.Another fill for umbrellakink on dreamwidth. I'm really on a roll with these G-rated fills, aren't I? The prompt was Klaus/Dave: fainting with lots of sweet, caring comfort and I, a true romantic, could not ignore it.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> If OP sees this, I hope it's alright that it's AU because I just really wanted Klaus to get an ice cream sundae (not a euphemism) with lots of sprinkles on it because he deserves one. 
> 
> Also there's a vague implication that Klaus is used to exchanging sexual favours for kindness BUT NOT ANYMORE.

Dave checked his watch. He was still five minutes early, so he took out his phone and scrolled through his news app idly, a nervous habit. His therapist told him to delete all the potentially triggering material off his phone, but Dave re-downloaded the local news app again. He had it set on local news only, and so far it had done its job of filtering out the stories about international wars that made his heart pound and the palms of his hands begin to sweat.

Iraq had been the worst eight months of his life, and the medical discharge had just added to the trauma. He was so ashamed of himself, of how he couldn’t handle the things he saw and the things he’d done and was so weak that he essentially got kicked out of the army.

His therapist had knocked some sense into him, saying that he wasn’t weak, wasn’t broken, and no, his life wasn’t over. He had PTSD, and that’s what was making him believe all these lies.

So, he joined a group therapy program for people suffering from post-traumatic symptoms of all kinds, and one day when he sat down in the plastic chair on a Thursday night, the most beautiful man he’d ever seen dropped down into the chair across from him, pulling out a book and opening it to a marked page. Oddly, he didn’t look down at the words, but still seemed to be flipping the pages at regular intervals. No, instead, he was looking at Dave with a bewildered expression on his face.

Dave knew he was staring, so he offered a smile and said hello.

“I haven’t seen you here before,” Dave said.

“Oh, I’m around,” the man said. “I’m always around.”

Dave didn’t know where to go from there. He was going to ask him what he was reading, but the other man spoke first.

“What about you? You come here often?” There was an element of suggestion to his voice that had alarms going off in Dave’s head.

_He’s flirting with you! He’s flirting with you! He’s flirting with you!_

They nearly overwhelmed his logic that getting involved with someone you go to group therapy with is a terrible, terrible idea.

He held on for the six months that the therapy program ran, during which time he learned that the other man’s name was Klaus, he had been in and out of rehab for ten years, and he had finally just come clean about the abuse he suffered at the hands of his adoptive father and his social worker hoped that by addressing the root cause of the reason he used, he could finally get clean for good.

More importantly, Dave learned that Klaus liked painting, thrift store shopping, and a good cup of coffee; he had six siblings, three tattoos, and a betta fish named Pogo Jr.; he favoured orange juice over apple juice, always smuggled extra donuts out of the meetings in the pocket of his jacket, and when he spoke about the things he loved, his eyes shone like emeralds and when he smiled Dave could never look away.

Before the very last Thursday meeting, Dave brought Klaus a cup of orange juice and a chocolate donut and asked if he would wait outside after the meeting. After, he found Klaus leaning outside against the railing of the stairs smoking a cigarette.

“You waited,” Dave said, slightly surprised.

“You asked me to,” Klaus said.

“I wanted to ask if you’d like to go out with me.” Dave spoke with a confidence that betrayed the million butterflies flapping around in his stomach.

“Me?”

Dave stood beside Klaus and nudged him with his shoulder. “Yeah, you. If you’re not interested, I get it, but-“

“No.” Klaus interrupted. “I am. I’d like to.” He smiled a small, sad smile. “My therapist says I have to take my next relationship slow, though. She says I've never been in a healthy relationship before.”

Dave nodded. “Then we will.”

 

* * *

 

He saw Klaus get off the bus, holding tight on the handrail and taking a minute to steady himself after the bus drove away. He looked terrible. His eyes were glazed over and his skin was pale (paler than usual) and he didn’t walk so much as stumble. Dave stood up and waved, and Klaus’s face lit up as he shuffled his way over to him.

“Hey, you okay?”

Klaus nodded, swiping the back of his hand over his forehead, where small beads of sweat had gathered. Dave wasn’t convinced. He hoped Klaus hadn’t relapsed.

“Oh, I’ve been worse,” he said. Dave steadied him as he began to sway, feeling the hot, clammy skin beneath his palms. Dave placed a hand over Klaus’s forehead. He definitely had a fever.

“Have you been drinking?” Dave asked. “Water?” he clarified, seeing the look of betrayal on Klaus’s face.

“Huh? Not really. Lots of tea though. Nice green tea. Very… soft,” Klaus babbled before his eyes rolled back in his head and he collapsed to the ground.

 

* * *

 

Dave’s apartment was closer than the hospital, so it seemed logical to take Klaus’s limp body there instead. In retrospect, Dave realized he probably should have called an ambulance, but when Klaus regained consciousness in the back seat of his car, he asked “am I at the hospital?” and when Dave said “no” he responded with a quiet “thank God” and passed out again, cheek pressed against the cloth seat.

He struggled to get Klaus into the elevator and resorted to scooping him up in his arms like a bride, crossing his fingers that none of his neighbours would see him hauling an unconscious twink into his apartment.

It wasn’t an amazing apartment, but it was a brightly lit studio with a little loft for his bed and Dave could see all the corners when he walked through the front door, which set his mind at ease. He only had to navigate the few stairs up to the loft before he dumped Klaus onto his bed. He watched him for a minute, only because seeing him asleep in his bed made him feel like life made sense. For someone who always acted so carefree, Klaus looked awfully worried when he slept. It made Dave’s heart hurt. He pulled his shoes off and tucked him under the blankets and, glancing around just in case someone was spying on him and constantly assessing his manliness, reached under his bed and pulled out a floppy stuffed unicorn. He bought it on impulse one day when he saw it in the window of the toy store. Something about it made him feel warm and fuzzy inside, and it wasn’t until the next Thursday when he realized it was because it reminded him of Klaus. He tucked the unicorn under Klaus’s arm and, satisfied, went to the kitchen to make lunch.

 

 

* * *

 

Dave had never made chicken soup in his apartment before. He was more of a tomato soup and crackers guy, but by some fluke he found a box of chicken noodle in the back of the pantry behind the gravy packets and a bag of stale Starbursts. It was done and simmering on the stove when he heard the first groan from the bed. He thought he’d let Klaus wake up slowly and went to go grab a bowl, but the panicked mumbling of “no, no, no, no, no” from his bed changed his mind. Dave ran up the stairs to find Klaus was sitting up, frantically checking his arms. _He’s checking for needle marks,_ Dave realized.

“You’re okay, Klaus,” he said, in a voice he hoped was reassuring. “You’re safe. You didn’t do anything.”

Klaus didn’t look convinced. “Is this your place?” Dave nodded. “Did I...?”

He could see the question in Klaus’s eyes and knew it wasn’t meant as an insult to him, but he still couldn’t help sounding a bit defensive when he said, “No, you didn’t seduce me into taking you home and ravishing you while unconscious. I respect your decision to take our relationship slow.”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Klaus said. He leaned down to scratch his leg through the sheets, grimacing when he touched it. “Are my pills still in my jacket?”

Filled with dread, Dave pulled an orange pill bottle out of Klaus’s jacket pocket. It was full.

“Oh, good,” Klaus said, relaxing into the pillows. Dave read the label at least three times before looking up at Klaus.

“Klaus, these are antibiotics.”

“Yeah?”

“Why are you on antibiotics?”

“Oh, that. I cut my leg open on a dumpster last week. I wasn’t hanging out in it or anything. It was for a… friend.”

“You were dumpster diving for a friend?”

“Yeah. He needed me to get something for him. Evidence. To convict his murderer.”

The pieces were clicking together in Dave’s mind. Sort of. He pulled out a pill and put it on the nightstand next to the glass of water he had poured earlier.

“I think your leg’s infected and it's making you sick.”

Klaus looked at the pill like it was a giant hairy spider. “I don’t want to take them.” He drew his knees up and hugged the unicorn into his chest.

“They’re just antibiotics, Klaus. You can’t get addicted.”

“It’s just… the action. I’m scared that it’s like muscle memory, you know? Like I’ll take these and then start looking for the next bottle of pills and before I know it I’ll have relapsed. I can’t do it again. Not now that I’ve finally got something good in my life.”

“What if…” Dave wracked his brain for a solution. He knew that trauma wasn’t always logical, and Klaus’s fear of relapse meant that he was serious about staying clean this time. “What if I supervise you? At least for the first couple days until you know you can do it yourself.”

“I have to take them three times a day. That’s a lot of supervising, Davey.”

Dave smiled and leaned in to kiss Klaus’s forehead. “I guess I’ll just have to spend a lot of time with you.”

 

* * *

 

Klaus had managed to stay awake long enough to eat half a bowl of soup and let Dave drape a cool facecloth over his forehead before he fell asleep again. Dave set up a fan as quietly as he could, trying to cool Klaus off until his fever broke. He left a note in bright pink sharpie on the bed next to Klaus, reassuring himself that if Klaus woke up alone, he would know that Dave had just dipped out to the store down the street to pick up some Tylenol.

Klaus was dozing when he came back, but woke when Dave approached with the bottle of Tylenol.

“Hey,” he said quietly, kneeling down and feeling Klaus’s forehead. He looked a little better after sleeping, and the water glass was empty. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m sorry,” Klaus said instead. Seeing Dave’s confusion, he said “Let me make it up to you?”

“You can take care of me one day, how is that for a deal?”

“I can take care of you now,” Klaus said, pulling himself towards the end of the bed and reaching down towards Dave’s belt. Dave stood up abruptly, pushing Klaus’s hand away.

“We said we were taking it slow, remember?”

“But you’re being so nice to me…”

His voice trailed off as Dave got into the bed beside him, pulling him into his arms. Dave kissed his forehead again and brushed the sweaty hair back from his face.

“We’re not gonna be like that, remember? I’m not gonna do nice things for you and expect something in return, okay? I’m gonna do nice things for you because I care about you and I like it when you’re happy.”

Klaus nodded into Dave’s shirt. “We can't get too comfy, though. I got you an ice cream sundae and I don’t want it to melt.”

“Are there sprinkles on it?”

“Darling, I made sure there were more sprinkles than ice cream.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THE FLUFF CONTINUES

The ice cream had reached the perfect temperature when Dave finally hauled Klaus out of bed and down to his kitchen table. The sundae was perched atop a stack of bills. Dave really had to get a better organization method than throwing them all on the table. Playing “have I paid this bill or not?” roulette was one of the least fun parts of civilian life. Some of the rainbow sprinkles had tumbled off the heaps of ice cream and were melting, leaving smears of colour on his phone bill. He picked up the sundae and led Klaus over to the couch instead. He grabbed two spoons on his way.

“Do you want the TV on?” he asked Klaus, who had sat on the floor and was leaning back against seat of the couch, matted hair splayed around his face.

“Uh uh,” Klaus said. He lolled his head to the side, looking at Dave. “I’d rather just look at you.”

“You have a fever.”

“I sure do.”

“Your proteins are denaturing and you’re saying all these ridiculously flattering things because your brain is melting.”

“Maybe,” Klaus said, smile suggesting that he knew exactly what he was saying. Dave offered him the sundae and Klaus dug the spoon in eagerly, scooping up a massive spoonful of vanilla ice cream and rolling it around in the sprinkles on the top. “Rainbow sprinkles always taste better,” he said.

Dave watched, smitten. Even after eight hours of fever sweats and agitated naps, Klaus looked beautiful. He’d spent the last four months daydreaming about waking up with him in the morning, making him breakfast, and kissing him goodbye on the way to work. Seeing him in all his dishevelled glory made it seem like a reality.

“Have some before I eat it all,” Klaus said, still shovelling soupy scoops of ice cream into his mouth. “I’m not contagious.”

Their eyes met across the sundae bowl. The next scoop of ice cream made its way over the bowl towards Dave. “Choo, choo,” Klaus smirked, and Dave opened his mouth, letting the cool sweet taste of vanilla wash over his tongue as his mouth closed around Klaus’s spoon. It was more innocent than suggestive, at least until Klaus pulled the spoon from Dave’s mouth and licked the remaining traces of ice cream off it. Dave gulped.

“Hey, Dave,” Klaus said. Dave knew what he was going to say before he said it. His eyes were beginning to lose focus and he fell back, lying limply against the couch cushions. “I think I need to lie down.”

“Couch or bed?” Dave secretly hoped he would say ‘bed’ so he could carry him again. He felt nice in his arms.

“Bathtub?” Klaus asked. “I’m so gross.”

Dave huffed out a laugh. “You could never look gross.”

“So charming! Are you sure you’re not expecting me to put out?”

Klaus said it with humour, but Dave still answered seriously. “Never,” he said, and let Klaus throw his arms around his neck as he lifted him against his chest and they headed for the bath.

 

* * *

 

“You know, you’re making it real hard for New Klaus not to try and jump your bones right now.”

Klaus looked into the water, hot and steaming around his feet and probably not good for his fever, but he looked so relaxed and comfortable that Dave couldn’t resist. He pulled out his secret box of bath bombs, buried at the back of his cupboard and kept handy for panic attacks and bad days. He didn’t know why he kept them hidden. He lived alone.

It was quite nice to have company, Dave thought, picking out a butterfly-shaped one that smelled like lavender and chamomile. It was the most embarrassingly girly bath bomb in the entire store, guaranteed, but it smelled so damn good he got over his manly pride and bought a whole box of them.

Klaus, wrapped in a towel and sitting on the closed toilet seat, trailed his feet in the water contentedly. Dave handed him the bath bomb.

“You’re a massive softie, aren’t you?” Klaus said in mock horror, before placing the butterfly under the tap. It turned the water a beautiful blue that reminded Dave of the Caribbean beaches he had only seen in calendars.

They waited in silence until the tub was filled and Dave turned to leave. “Stay?” Klaus asked. His eyes were wide and his skin was flushed bright red in the humid air of the bathroom. “I might fall asleep and drown in the bathtub,” he said, shrugging his shoulders.

Dave couldn’t argue with that logic, so he sat down in the space Klaus had just previously vacated and closed his eyes as Klaus tossed his towel onto the floor and lowered himself into the bubbly water. He didn’t open them until he heard the long satisfied “ahhhhh”.

Klaus had sunk down to his neck in the water. His bony knees poked up out of the bubbles like two pale islands where the surf of the ocean-blue water gathered.

“Can you keep yourself above water for a minute?”

Klaus mm-hmmed a yes, relaxing his neck against the rim of the tub. “Can you put on some music?”

Faced with the conundrum of choosing the appropriate music, Dave nearly forgot why he left the bathroom in the first place. He fished his big plastic movie theatre cup out of the cabinet. It was covered in a montage of Godzilla pictures and Dave had lasted about ten seconds before deciding he had to have it.

He faced down the stereo, flipping it on and deciding it was more important to make sure Klaus didn’t faint in the heat of the steamy bathroom and crossed his fingers that whatever he was last listening to wasn’t horrifically embarrassing.

Klaus had his knees drawn up to his chest in the water when he returned.

“You okay?” Dave said gently, acutely aware that he sat in the exact same position when he was experiencing a flashback. Klaus looked up, startled.

“You came back!” he said.

Dave sat on the edge of the tub next to him. “How are you going to wash your hair without a giant Godzilla cup and The Supremes playing in the background?”

Klaus relaxed visibly, and Dave took a chance. He dipped the cup in the water and poured it slowly over Klaus’s hair. Klaus relaxed back into it, letting Dave continue wetting his hair. Feeling bold, he pulled his shirt off and reached for the shampoo bottle he kept on the shelf in the shower. He squeezed out a glob of it and reached for Klaus’s head, smoothing it over the sodden curls. He rubbed it in, using his fingertips and making small circles on Klaus’s scalp. He was humming happily, nuzzling into Dave’s hands like a purring cat. The urge to get into the bathwater behind him and hold him in his arms was overwhelming.

Instead, Dave made them both giggle like schoolgirls when he rubbed the remaining shampoo into Klaus’s chin, covering his goatee with a bubbly beard. He rinsed the shampoo out of his hair, and after Klaus asked “you do have conditioner, right?”

Dave shook his head.

“You heathen!” Klaus joked, rubbing the bubbly water over his reddened skin. “I’ll bring you some for next time.”

“Are you planning on nearly dying again on our next date?”

Klaus splashed his hands in the water. “You really want to see me again?”

Dave knelt on the floor so he was face to face with Klaus. The puddles of spilled bathwater soaked through the knee of his trousers. “I would be honoured if you would see me again,” he said.

Klaus laughed, reaching a bubble-covered arm towards him and pulling into a soggy hug. “You’re one weird guy, Dave Katz.”

“Yeah,” he shrugged, returning the embrace.

 

* * *

 

Klaus was tucked back in bed, leg freshly bandaged and wearing Dave’s favourite pyjamas. They were blue and white striped and incredibly soft and definitely not purchased because they looked like the ones that the Bananas in Pajamas wore because Dave was not an incredibly sentimental and nostalgic man with a soft spot for dancing fruit. Definitely not.

“Oh, you play the guitar too?” Klaus pointed at the guitar propped up in the corner next to Dave’s dresser.

“Uh, a little bit. I haven’t played in a while though,” Dave said, scratching his arm uncomfortably.

“Can you play me something?”

Dave said, “of course,” entirely conscious of the fact that he could only play about six songs from memory and three of them were Elvis. Serenading his brand new boyfriend with “Can’t Help Falling in Love” was a bit much, he thought, despite it being an undeniable fact.

He sat on the edge of the bed, took a deep breath, and started playing.

“Never made it as a wise man,” he sang, closing his eyes and letting the melody flow through him. “Couldn’t cut it as a poor man stealing.”

If Dave had opened his eyes, he would have seen Klaus’s eyes widen and jaw drop in horror that he was being serenaded with Nickelback.

“Tired of living like a blind man, I’m sick of sight without a sense of feeling and this is how you remind me…” Dave was getting into it now. He grew up in Canada with dual citizenship, and it was basically an unwritten law that every Canadian household had to own a copy of Nickelback’s Silver Side Up. Despite the constant mockery, Dave knew in his heart that that album was filled with bops.

Klaus cleared his throat. “Can I make a request?” he asked tentatively.

Dave stopped, letting the last F chord resonate in his very soul. He could see Klaus making a careful calculation in his head.

“I’d love to hear Wonderwall,” he said. Dave heaved a sigh of relief. He could play that one.

When he looked up after finishing the song, Klaus was nearly asleep. His wet hair was soaking through the pillow, but it didn’t seem to bother him. Dave put the guitar down gently.

“Can you sleep with me?” Klaus whispered. “Just sleeping, I promise.”

Dave presented Klaus with another capsule of antibiotics. “Take this first.” Klaus opened his mouth and Dave, shaking his head, popped the pill in. He offered the straw that he had stuck in the water glass at Klaus’s behest (“What, don’t I get a curly straw!?”) and Klaus opened his mouth again, showing that he had swallowed the pill.

He walked around the edge of the bed, getting in on the other side and pulling Klaus into him, his back against Dave’s front. Klaus’s cool, damp hair tickled his nose and Dave inhaled, breathing in the fruity scent of shampoo. Klaus covered Dave’s hand with his own, pulling it tighter across his chest.

 

* * *

 

“Is that a unicorn horn in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?” Klaus whispered, waking Dave up. He immediately flew into a panic.

“Oh my God! I’m so sorry. It’s not- I can just-“ but Klaus was laughing so hard his voice was lost beneath the sound of it. Klaus reached down between them and pulled out the stuffed unicorn.

“That wasn’t funny,” Dave grumbled, sitting up and wishing he had put a shirt on before falling into bed with Klaus.

“It really was,” Klaus stated, firm and unmoveable.

“You seem better.” Dave said when he had found a t-shirt underneath his bed and pulled it over his head.

“I feel better,” Klaus said, stretching his arms over his head. “You’re grumpy in the morning.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Do you want me to go home?”

“No,” Dave answered truthfully. “I like having you here.”

Klaus smiled. Despite his chapped lips and white pallor, he was stunning. “Can I kiss you?”

It took Dave a moment to get over the surprise, and he nodded, slowly at first and then more eagerly as Klaus sat up in his bed, wrapped in his striped pajamas and looking every bit as blissfully domestic as he had in Dave’s cheesiest fantasies.

It wasn’t a kiss to write stories about. It wasn’t particularly as long, or sensual, or meaningful as other kisses Dave had experienced. But it was with Klaus, so his heart soared and his head spun and they had to pull apart because they were both smiling to wide to continue.

“Are you going to make me breakfast in bed too?” Klaus asked, pressing his forehead against Dave’s.

“Only if you take your medicine.”

Klaus pulled away, leaning over him towards the nightstand where the antibiotics and the Tylenol sat side by side. Klaus shook out one of each, showed them to Dave with pride, and swallowed them dry.

“Waffles?” Dave asked.

“You read my mind.”

 

* * *

 

Six months later and almost two months after they realized that Klaus had accidentally moved in with him, Dave shook his boyfriend awake.

“Klaus,” he whispered, desperately. “Klaus, wake up. I’m dying.”

Klaus rolled over in a flail of limbs, propping himself up on Dave’s chest. He reached over and flicked on the bedside lamp.

“What’s wrong?” Klaus asked groggily.

“I feel awful and I think I’m dying.” Dave sneezed.

Klaus snorted. “Yep, definitely the plague.”

“You think?”

“No, doofus, I think you have a cold.”

“It has to be at least pneumonia. I’m close to death.” He sneezed again.

Klaus sighed, but sat up against the headboard of their bed. “All right, come here.” Dave scooted closer to him and laid his head in Klaus’s lap, closing his eyes and leaning into the fingers stroking through his hair. “I’ll make you waffles in the morning,” Klaus said, relaxing against the pillows and letting Dave sneeze into his fuzzy polka dot pyjama pants.

“I love you,” Dave said, voice muffled against the fleecy fabric.

Klaus smiled fondly. “Yeah, I love you too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cody Ray Thompson is from Calgary therefore Dave is a closet Nickelback fan. I don`t make the rules.
> 
> If someone else writes a sequel about Klaus taking care of Dave during his man-cold I'll send you AT LEAST ten (10) pictures of my pet axolotl

**Author's Note:**

> Take your full course of antibiotics, kids


End file.
